A homeowner who bought flood cover days before his house was inundated will be paid for his losses after his insurer failed to show the damage occurred within an uninsured period.

The man added flood cover to his home and contents policy on October 12 2022, five days before lodging a claim on it.

Auto & General Services did not dispute the damage was caused by a flood but said the loss occurred within 72 hours of the policy’s inception, which was an excluded period.

The insurer relied on a hydrologist who said the property would have been susceptible to flood when water levels in a nearby river reached 115.2 metres (above sea level).

The hydrologist’s report said the river was above 115 metres from noon on October 14 to the early morning of October 16, peaking just after midnight on October 15. 

The report determined the property had been flooded to a depth of 0.4 metres some time during this period. 

The claimant’s son said he visited the property on October 14 and saw no damage. He said he could not return the next day due to road closures, and by October 17 the property was flooded by about 0.6 metres of water. 

In a ruling on the matter, an Australian Financial Complaints Authority ombudsman says the insurer lacks information to show the flood damage occurred before 8.07am on October 15 – the end of the exclusion period – noting the hydrologist did not complete the “start of the flood/inundation” section of their report. 

“I am somewhat surprised this information in the report was not included, given the fact the time the property was flooded is crucial to this matter,” the ombudsman said. 

AFCA accepts that the report notes when the river peaked, but says this does not show when water would have reached or entered the home. 

“There is some distance from the river to the house and I accept that it would take time for the water to reach the house once the water overflowed the riverbank,” the ombudsman said.

The decision acknowledges that the claimant has not shown the home was flooded after the exclusion period, but says the onus is on the insurer to make its case. 

“I would have expected that the insurer would have provided information or a timeline as to the inundation stages at the property. In the absence of this, I can only be satisfied that the water reached the property but not the internal area of the house prior to 8.07am on October 15 2022.”  

Click here for the ruling.